Hot and dry is the outlook in Big Country

Mercury reaches summertime levels

Today: Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. High temperatures in the lower 90s, with southerly winds 15 to 25 mph.

Tonight: Partly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 60s, with southeast winds 15 to 25 mph.

Wednesday: Partly cloudy with 20 percent chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. High temperatures around 90, with southwest winds 15 to 20 mph.

Wednesday night: Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 60s, with southwest winds 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph after midnight.

Thursday: Mostly sunny with highs in the upper 80s.

Thursday night: Mostly clear with lows in the upper 50s.

The bad news is that it is unseasonably hot in Abilene right now. The worse news is no relief is in sight.

Information from the National Weather Service confirms this spring is hotter and drier in West Texas than normal.

Joel Dunn, a forecaster for the weather service in San Angelo, said in Abilene, and in most of the Big Country, temperatures are at or near peak summertime levels. This comes after a warmer and drier winter than normal.

Sunday's 102-degree temperature was the first time Abilene broke the century mark this year, though it has gotten close several times. High temperatures reached the 90s 17 times in April and May, including 99 on April 9 and 18.

The hot weekend weather makes it easy to forget that for two days last week highs were only in the 60s, and a week ago the low dipped to 37.

As for rain, Abilene has received 5.17 inches this year, 0.70 of an inch below normal.

When temperatures have topped out in the upper 90s in recent weeks, that put the Key City almost 20 degrees above normal for this time of the year.

"Right now we're getting a little relief from the heat with temperatures in the low-90s," Dunn said, explaining that a cold front was moving through the area. "And there is a slight chance of rain today and Wednesday. But it will be very hot again by the end of the week."

NWS forecaster Daniel Huckaby from Fort Worth said the Abilene-area is experiencing a severe drought while San Angelo and the area north of that city are in an extreme drought.

Huckaby defined a severe drought as a once in every 10 years event while an extreme drought occurs every 20 years.

"We are seeing these droughts more frequently, he said. "They often last several months, or sometimes as long as a year."

He said the benchmark for these sort of West Texas droughts occurred in the 1950s and it lasted several years.

This drought is not just holding on in West Texas but has spread to the east and west of the Lone Star State.

Portions of Texas and a small part of western Louisiana are the only parts of the nation that rank in the NWS' worst drought condition category, "exceptional," said Victor Murphy, the climate service program manager for the NWS' southern region, based in Fort Worth. The exceptional drought level happens once every 50 to 100 years, he said.

Much of the rest of Texas and Louisiana are in extreme drought conditions — the worst in 20 to 50 years — as are parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida and tiny portions of Colorado and Kansas.

Other areas of those states are experiencing severe and moderate drought conditions, along with parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

May is "pretty much our last chance to mitigate this thing," because that month typically brings the most rainfall in many of the bone-dry states, including Texas and Oklahoma, which need about 4 inches of rain in the next month, Murphy said.

"May is normally one of the wettest months of the year in West Texas," Huckaby said. "We got little rain this May and that makes it that much worse."

The widespread drought was spawned last year by La Niña, a condition that changes wind and air pressure patterns.

It brought warmer-than-normal temperatures and less rainfall to the southern and central U.S., drying out grass and shrubs that have become fuel for wildfires that have ignited and raged out of control in several states.

Texas wildfires have burned more than 2,900 square miles since the beginning of the year, destroying about 400 homes and leading to the deaths of two firefighters, according to the Texas Forest Service.

Dunn said when the ground is as dry as it is now, the sunlight reflects off the hard ground and that makes it even hotter.